C. Huey-Burns, RCPMitt Romney and Paul Ryan earned the dubious distinction of garnering just 27 percent of the Latino vote in 2012. This dismal showing not only assured their defeat, but implied GOP difficulties for years to come: Hispanics are the nation's fastest-growing minority.The good news for the party is that the most prominent Republican officeholders have publicly acknowledged the depth of the problem. They are finally focusing in a serious way on immigration, the issue that put Romney most directly odds with Hispanic voters.The bad news is that Republicans may not be able to get there from...

Robert Samuelson, Washington PostWASHINGTON -- We live in a post-industrial age, defined more by Google than by General Motors. The term "post-industrial society" was first popularized by the sociologist Daniel Bell (1919-2011) in a 1973 book, and the change has generally been a boon. The transition from factory to office has raised living standards, curbed pollution and reduced the number of grueling, often-monotonous jobs. Yet, this largely beneficial transformation suffers in the popular imagination. The vast "service sector," which now dominates the economy, is seen as inferior, low-paying and even...

And If So, Is That Terrible News? Cross-posted with TomDispatch.com A few weeks ago, Time magazine called the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline that will bring some of the dirtiest energy on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to the U.S. Gulf Coast the “Selma and Stonewall” of the climate movement. Which, if you think about it, may be both good news and bad news. Yes, those of us fighting the pipeline have mobilized record numbers of activists: the largest civil disobedience action in 30 years and 40,000 people on the mall in February for the biggest climate rally in American history. Right now, we’re aiming to get a million people to send in public comments about the “environmental review” the State Department is conducting on the feasibility and advisability of building the pipeline.  And there’s good reason to put pressure on.  After all, it’s the same State Department that, as on a previous round of reviews, hired “experts” who had once worked as consultants for TransCanada, the pipeline’s builder. Still, let’s put things in perspective: Stonewall took place in 1969, and as of last week the Supreme Court was still trying to decide if gay people should be allowed to marry each other. If the climate movement takes that long, we’ll be rallying in scuba masks. (I’m not kidding. The section of the Washington Mall where we rallied against the pipeline this winter already has a big construction project underway: a flood barrier to keep the rising Potomac River out of downtown DC.) It was certainly joyful to see marriage equality being considered by our top judicial body.  In some ways, however, the most depressing spectacle of the week was watching Democratic leaders decide that, in 2013, it was finally safe to proclaim gay people actual human beings. In one weekend, Democratic senators Mark Warner of Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Tim Johnson of South Dakota, and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia figured out that they had “evolved” on the issue. And Bill Clinton, the greatest weathervane who ever lived, finally decided that the Defense of Marriage Act he had signed into law, boasted about in ads on Christian radio, and urged candidate John Kerry to defend as constitutional in 2004, was, you know, wrong. He, too, had “evolved,” once the polls made it clear that such an evolution was a safe bet. Why recite all this history? Because for me, the hardest part of the Keystone pipeline fight has been figuring out what in the world to do about the Democrats. Fiddling While the Planet Burns Let’s begin by stipulating that, taken as a whole, they’re better than the Republicans. About a year ago, in his initial campaign ad of the general election, Mitt Romney declared that his first act in office would be to approve Keystone and that, if necessary, he would “build it myself.” (A charming image, it must be said). Every Republican in the Senate voted on a nonbinding resolution to approve the pipeline -- every single one. In other words, their unity in subservience to the fossil fuel industry is complete, and almost compelling. At the least, you know exactly what you’re getting from them. With the Democrats, not so much. Seventeen of their Senate caucus -- about a third -- joined the GOP in voting to approve Keystone XL. As the Washington insider website Politico proclaimed in a headline the next day, “Obama’s Achilles Heel on Climate: Senate Democrats.” Which actually may have been generous to the president.  It’s not at all clear that he wants to stop the Keystone pipeline (though he has the power to do so himself, no matter what the Senate may want), or for that matter do anything else very difficult when it comes to climate change.  His new secretary of state, John Kerry, issued a preliminary environmental impact statement on the pipeline so fraught with errors that it took scientists and policy wonks about 20 minutes to shred its math. Administration insiders keep insisting, ominously enough, that the president doesn’t think Keystone is a very big deal. Indeed, despite his amped-up post-election rhetoric on climate change, he continues to insist on an “all-of-the-above” energy policy which, as renowned climate scientist James Hansen pointed out in his valedictory shortly before retiring from NASA last week, simply can’t be squared with basic climate-change math. All these men and women have excuses for their climate conservatism.  To name just two: the oil industry has endless resources and they’re scared about reelection losses. Such excuses are perfectly realistic and pragmatic, as far as they go: if you can’t get re-elected, you can’t do even marginal good and you certainly can’t block right-wing craziness. But they also hide a deep affection for oil industry money, which turns out to be an even better predictor of voting records than party affiliation. Anyway, aren’t all those apologias wearing thin as Arctic sea ice melts with startling, planet-changing speed? It was bad enough to take four decades simply to warm up to the idea of gay rights.  Innumerable lives were blighted in those in-between years, and given long-lasting official unconcern about AIDS, innumerable lives were lost.  At least, however, inaction didn’t make the problem harder to solve: if the Supreme Court decides gay people should be able to marry, then they’ll be able to marry. Unlike gay rights or similar issues of basic human justice and fairness, climate change comes with a time limit.  Go past a certain point, and we may no longer be able to affect the outcome in ways that will prevent long-term global catastrophe. We’re clearly nearing that limit and so the essential cowardice of too many Democrats is becoming an ever more fundamental problem that needs to be faced. We lack the decades needed for their positions to “evolve” along with the polling numbers.  What we need, desperately, is for them to pitch in and help lead the transition in public opinion and public policy. Instead, at best they insist on fiddling around the edges, while the planet prepares to burn. The newly formed Organizing for Action, for instance -- an effort to turn Barack Obama’s fundraising list into a kind of quasi-official MoveOn.org -- has taken up climate change as one of its goals. Instead of joining with the actual movement around the Keystone pipeline or turning to other central organizing issues, however, it evidently plans to devote more energy to house parties to put solar panels on people’s roofs. That’s great, but there’s no way such a “movement” will profoundly alter the trajectory of climate math, a task that instead requires deep structural reform of exactly the kind that makes the administration and Congressional “moderates” nervous. Energy Independence: Last Century’s Worry So far, the Democrats are showing some willingness to face the issues that matter only when it comes to coal. After a decade of concentrated assault by activists led by the Sierra Club, the coal industry is now badly weakened: plans for more than 100 new coal-fired power plants have disappeared from anyone’s drawing board. So, post-election, the White House finally seems willing to take on the industry at least in modest ways, including possibly with new Environmental Protection Agency regulations that could start closing down existing coal-fired plants (though even that approach now seems delayed). Recently, I had a long talk with an administration insider who kept telling me that, for the next decade, we should focus all our energies on “killing coal.”  Why? Because it was politically feasible. And indeed we should, but climate-change science makes it clear that we need to put the same sort of thought and creative energy into killing oil and natural gas, too. I mean, the Arctic -- from Greenland to its seas -- essentially melted last summer in a way never before seen. The frozen Arctic is like a large physical feature. It’s as if you woke up one morning and your left arm was missing. You’d panic. There is, however, no panic in Washington.  Instead, the administration and Democratic moderates are reveling in new oil finds in North Dakota and in the shale gas now flowing out of Appalachia, even though exploiting both of these energy supplies is likely to lock us into more decades of fossil fuel use. They’re pleased as punch that we’re getting nearer to “energy independence.” Unfortunately, energy independence was last century’s worry.  It dates back to the crises set off by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in the early 1970s, not long after… Stonewall. So what to do? The narrow window of opportunity that physics provides us makes me doubt that a third party will offer a fast enough answer to come to terms with our changing planet. The Green Party certainly offered the soundest platform in our last elections, and in Germany and Australia the Greens have been decisive in nudging coalition governments towards carbon commitments. But those are parliamentary systems. Here, so far, national third parties have been more likely to serve as spoilers than as wedges (though it’s been an enlightening pleasure to engage with New York’s Working Families Party, or the Progressives in Vermont).  It’s not clear to me how that will effectively lead to changes during the few years we’ve got left to deal with carbon. Climate science enforces a certain brute realism.  It makes it harder to follow one’s heart. Along with some way to make a third party truly viable, we need a genuine movement for fundamental governmental reform -- not just a change in the Senate’s filibuster rules, but publicly funded elections, an end to the idea that corporations are citizens, and genuine constraints on revolving-door lobbyists. These are crucial matters, and it is wonderful to see broad new campaigns underway around them.  It’s entirely possible that there’s no way to do what needs doing about climate change in this country without them. But even their most optimistic proponents talk in terms of several election cycles, when the scientists tell us that we have no hope of holding the rise in the planetary temperature below two degrees unless global emissions peak by 2015. Of course, climate-change activists can and should continue to work to make the Democrats better.  At the moment, for instance, the 350.org action fund is organizing college students for the Massachusetts primary later this month. One senatorial candidate, Steven Lynch, voted to build the Keystone pipeline, and that’s not okay.  Maybe electing his opponent, Ed Markey, will send at least a small signal. In fact, this strategy got considerably more promising in the last few days when California hedge fund manager and big-time Democratic donor Tom Steyer announced that he was not only going to go after Lynch, but any politician of any party who didn’t take climate change seriously. “The goal here is not to win. The goal here is to destroy these people,” he said, demonstrating precisely the level of rhetoric (and spending) that might actually start to shake things up. It will take a while, though.  According to press reports, Obama explained to the environmentalists at a fundraiser Steyer hosted that “the politics of this are tough,” because “if your house is still underwater,” then global warming is “probably not rising to your number one concern.” By underwater, he meant: worth less than the mortgage.  At this rate, however, it won’t be long before presidents who use that phrase actually mean “underwater.” Obama closed his remarks by saying something that perfectly summed up the problem of our moment. Dealing with climate change, he said, is “going to take people in Washington who are willing to speak truth to power, are willing to take some risks politically, are willing to get a little bit out ahead of the curve -- not two miles ahead of the curve, but just a little bit ahead of it.” That pretty much defines the Democrats: just a little bit ahead, not as bad as Bush, doing what we can. And so, as I turn this problem over and over in my head, I keep coming to the same conclusion: we probably need to think, most of the time, about how to change the country, not the Democrats. If we build a movement strong enough to transform the national mood, then perhaps the trembling leaders of the Democrats will eventually follow. I mean, “evolve.” At which point we’ll get an end to things like the Keystone pipeline, and maybe even a price on carbon. That seems to be the lesson of Stonewall and of Selma. The movement is what matters; the Democrats are, at best, the eventual vehicle for closing the deal. The closest thing I’ve got to a guru on American politics is my senator, Bernie Sanders. He deals with the Democrat problem all the time. He’s an independent, but he caucuses with them, which means he’s locked in the same weird dance as the rest of us working for real change. A few weeks ago, I gave the keynote address at a global warming summit he convened in Vermont’s state capital, and afterwards I confessed to him my perplexity. “I can’t think of anything we can do except keep trying to build a big movement,” I said. “A movement vast enough to scare or hearten the weak-kneed.” “There’s nothing else that’s ever going to do it,” he replied. And so, down to work. Bill McKibben is Schumann Distinguished Scholar at Middlebury College, founder of the global climate campaign 350.org, a TomDispatch regular, and the author, most recently, of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet. Follow TomDispatch on Twitter and join us on Facebook. Check out the newest Dispatch book, Nick Turse’s The Changing Face of Empire: Special Ops, Drones, Proxy Fighters, Secret Bases, and Cyberwarfare.

Former President Bill Clinton predicted Saturday that Americans will have "some very good" candidates to pick from in the next presidential election, CNN reports. During a question-and-answer session at the Clinton Global Initiative University's annual meeting in St. Louis, the former president was asked if he would rather have eight more years in the White House or complete 16 projects for the nonprofit organization. "I would rather keep doing what I'm doing," Clinton said. "Because I think America will have some very good choices for president." As Clinton's wife, former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, returned to the public stage last week, speculation on whether she will run for president in 2016 has reached heightened levels. While recent polls have shown the former First Lady with a significant edge over potential rivals in the Republican Party, including Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Clinton has yet to make an announcement on whether or not she will run. However, her reluctance to wade into a campaign just yet hasn't stopped her supporters from organizing. The Ready For Hillary PAC, which last week launched its website two months after filing paperwork with the Federal Election Commission, has already attracted one big name -- longtime Clinton adviser James Carville. "I’m not going to waste my time writing you about how great Hillary is or how formidable she’d be – you know it all already," Carville wrote in an email to the group's supporters. "But it isn’t worth squat to have the fastest car at the racetrack if there ain’t any gas in the tank — and that’s why the work that Ready for Hillary PAC is doing is absolutely critical. We need to convert the hunger that’s out there for Hillary’s candidacy into a real grassroots organization."

Conservative politicians, including Mitt Romney during his presidential campaign, supported legislation mandating drug testing for recipients of federal aid, such as: the unemployed, families in assistance programs -- in general, citizens down on their luck or in trouble. Interestingly, none of these politicians has suggested drug tests for executives whose banks benefit from billions in federal aid and bailouts. Since 2011 (generally, at Republican insistence): "Seven states have passed laws mandating drug tests for [welfare] recipients, and in 2012 at least twenty-five other states considered proposals to tie welfare cash assistance, and in some cases also food stamps, to drug tests." (Source: The Nation.) For example, in 2011, GOP Governor Scott of Florida signed a law requiring all applicants for that state's welfare program to take a drug test. And in 2012: "Congress passed a law paving the way for states to urine-test the recipients of unemployment benefits ... Since then, sixteen states have considered laws tying unemployment insurance benefits to drug tests." (Source: The Nation.) And, in 2013, in response to various court decisions concerned that mandatory drug testing violated welfare recipients' constitutional rights: "Rep. Fincher (R-TN) introduced a bill ... that would require states that want to receive full funding for welfare assistance to force its citizens to waive their Fourth Amendment rights and submit to random drug testing." (Source: ThinkProgress.) One touted justification for drug-testing assistance applicants is that people who've fallen on hard times because of drug problems shouldn't get a taxpayer bailout. In short, if people can't run their lives, or businesses, because of drug use, they shouldn't be subsidized with government money. And, speaking of people who can't run their businesses without a government subsidy, that does brings us back to our largest banks. Bloomberg News recently reported that America's largest banks receive a federal subsidy of about $80 billion per year, and that, without this subsidy, they would not be able stay in business. To put the bank subsidy in perspective, federal payments under the welfare programs and food stamps combined are about $70 billion per year. Looking at the actions of our financial services sector, at least one plausible explanation may be that some bank executives were stoned out of their minds. Consider a few examples: The 2008 financial crisis, when, in addition to their annual $80 billion subsidy, our banks needed a $400 billion bailout. The collapse of Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers and AIG. Five banks (Ally Bank, Bank of America, Citi, J.P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo) paid $25 billion to settle claims that they "routinely signed foreclosure related documents ... without actually knowing whether the facts contained in those documents were correct." Seriously, you'd have to be high as a kite, incredibly arrogant, or amazingly incompetent to think you could get away with this behavior. Money Laundering -- "Credit Suisse, Lloyds Bank, ABN Amro, ING Bank and now HSBC -- have reached settlements in the past couple of years with the U.S. government for billions of dollars in tainted transactions." For example, "between 2006 and 2010, the Sinaloa Cartel in Mexico, the Norte del Valle Cartel in Colombia and other drug traffickers laundered at least $881 million in illegal narcotics trafficking proceeds through HSBC". Since these banks were doing business, on a large-scale, with drug traffickers, did some bank executives perhaps try samples? The actions of the financial services industry can only be explained by some combination of bad luck, innocent incompetence, criminal intent, or significant drug use. Unless we ask our bank CEOs (and other senior executives) to "pee in the cup," how will we know whether they "deserve" taxpayer assistance? If this seems far-fetched, it's been widely reported that James Cayne, the CEO of Bear Stearns as it lurched into insolvency: "Sometimes smoked marijuana at the end of the day ... He also has used pot in more private settings, according to people who say they witnessed him doing so or participated with him." (Source: WSJ, Bear CEO's Handling Of Crisis Raises Issues.) The banking industry has demonstrated an ongoing pattern of law-breaking behavior, wouldn't be profitable without a massive government subsidy, and is filled with credible rumors that senior bank personnel use illegal drugs. Further, a senior bank executive with a drug problem is in a position to do real damage to our economy, unlike the average person on unemployment insurance. If bank executives don't want to submit to drug testing in exchange for federal aid for their bank, they could always resign. So why aren't our political leaders demanding that these corporate welfare recipients join other welfare recipients in mandatory drug testing programs? Let me offer a few thoughts: Political Donations: No one on food stamps makes substantial political contributions. However, America's financial services industry (broadly defined) donated $650 million to political campaigns in 2012. Future High-Paying Jobs: Many of our current political leaders, and their staffs, are tomorrow's highly-paid lobbyists for banks. They might not want to annoy potential future employers. Class Bias: Our Congress knows and socializes with bank executives. But how many congressional leaders have shared a meal with a family on food stamps? Or lunched with someone who worked hard for 20 years, lost his/her job in the financial crisis, and now must "pee in a cup" to satisfy the whims of hypocritical politicians? For a variety of reasons, I believe drug testing of aid recipients is bad policy; the tests are often inaccurate, several courts believe these laws violate our constitutional rights, and so on. But if we're going to require it, let's test our corporate welfare recipients as well as ordinary Americans. Steven Strauss is an adjunct lecturer in public policy at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. Immediately prior to Harvard, he was founding Managing Director of the Center for Economic Transformation at the New York City Economic Development Corporation. Steven was one of the NYC leads for Applied Sciences NYC (Mayor Bloomberg's plan to build a new engineering and innovation center in NYC), NYC BigApps and many other initiatives to foster job growth, innovation and entrepreneurship. In 2010, Steven was selected as a member of the Silicon Alley 100 in NYC. He has a Ph.D. in Management from Yale University, and over 20 years' private sector work experience. Geographically, Steven has worked in the US, Asia, Europe and the Middle East. You can follow him on Twitter at: @Steven_Strauss 


Today, my father would have been 90. My dad was a corpsman with the 3rd Marines at Guadalcanal and Bougainville during World War Two. He was 17 and often spent nights in the jungle holding a wounded buddy in his arms, fighting to save the soldier's life as he murmured for his mom or sweetheart and then slipped away. I can see my dad now in my mind's eye, letting go of the dead Marine and reaching for another Lucky Strike. The old Lucky Strike green packaging had grown starkly red as the war went on. Green was in high demand in those days for uniforms, camouflage and paint for tanks and jeeps. Lucky Strike took advantage of the color of the times by announcing, "Lucky Strike Green Has Gone To War!" The tobacco folks made sure of it by sending millions of free packs of cigarettes to American soldiers overseas, quickly addicting them to a drug that would kill them with even less mercy than the enemy, plus it would take a lot longer. With any luck, I'm about to outlive my dad. I'll be 67 in another few months. He was 63 when he died in a thrall of convulsions resulting from the tobacco which had destroyed his heart and his lungs and his spirit. I held him in my arms as he quivered into unconsciousness and I helped pull the plug so he could finally die. It's hard to watch as Medicare is offered up for cuts while taxes are increased on virtually everything but tobacco. I agree with my politically conservative friends. Let's not raise taxes on tobacco. Let's ban it!

Dan Balz, Washington Post

Ross Douthat, New York TimesSusan Patton, the Princeton alumna who became famous for her letter urging Ivy League women to use their college years to find a mate, has been denounced as a traitor to feminism, to coeducation, to the university ideal. But really she's something much more interesting: a traitor to her class.Her betrayal consists of being gauche enough to acknowledge publicly a truth that everyone who's come up through Ivy League culture knows intuitively.

Cathy Lynn Grossman, USA Today

WASHINGTON -- A raucous public debate over the nation's flawed immigration system is set to begin in earnest this week as senators finalize a bipartisan bill to secure the border, allow tens of thousands of foreign workers into the country and grant eventual citizenship to the estimated 11 million people living here illegally. Already negotiators are cautioning of struggles ahead for an issue that's defied resolution for years. An immigration deal came close on the Senate floor in 2007 but collapsed amid interest group bickering and an angry public backlash. "There will be a great deal of unhappiness about this proposal because everybody didn't get what they wanted," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., a leader of the eight senators negotiating the legislation, said Sunday. "There are entrenched positions on both sides of this issue." "There's a long road," said Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., appearing alongside McCain on CBS' "Face the Nation." "There are people on both sides who are against this bill, and they will be able to shoot at it." Schumer, McCain and their "Gang of Eight" already missed a self-imposed deadline to have their bill ready in March, but Schumer said he hopes that this week, it will happen. "All of us have said that there will be no agreement until the eight of us agree to a big, specific bill, but hopefully we can get that done by the end of the week," said Schumer. Schumer, McCain and other negotiators are trying to avoid mistakes of the past. A painstaking deal reached a week ago knit together traditional enemies, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO, in an accord over a new low-skilled worker program. The proposal would allow up to 200,000 workers a year into the county to fill jobs in construction, hospitality, nursing homes and other areas where employers say they have a difficult time hiring Americans. The negotiators also have pledged to move the bill through the Senate Judiciary Committee and onto the floor according to what's known in Senate jargon as "regular order," trying to head off complaints from conservatives that the legislation is being rammed through. A deal on immigration is a top second-term priority for President Barack Obama, and his senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer said Sunday that the bill being developed in the Senate is consistent with Obama's approach – even though the Senate plan would tie border security to a path to citizenship in a manner Obama administration officials have criticized. Pfeiffer didn't answer directly when asked on "Fox News Sunday" whether Obama would sign legislation making a path to citizenship contingent on first securing the border. But he suggested Obama was supportive of the Senate plan. "What has been talked about in the Gang of Eight proposal is 100 percent consistent with what the president is doing so we feel very good about it," Pfeiffer said. "And they are looking at it in the right way." Sticking points remain. There's still disagreement over plans for a new program to bring in agriculture workers, who weren't included in the deal struck between the chamber and AFL-CIO. The agriculture industry is at odds with United Farm Workers over wages. But overall, all involved are optimistic that the time is ripe to make the biggest changes to the nation's immigration laws in more than a quarter-century. For many Republicans, their loss in the November presidential election, when Latino and Asians voters backed Obama in big numbers, resonates as evidence that they must confront the immigration issue. "The politics of self-deportation are behind us," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., referring to GOP candidate Mitt Romney's suggestion in the presidential campaign. "It was an impractical solution. Quite frankly it's offensive. Every corner of the Republican Party, from libertarians to the (Republican National Committee), House Republicans and the rank-and-file Republican Party member, is now understanding there has to be an earned pathway to citizenship." Graham and McCain also had praise for Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a member of the negotiating team who's acted as a bridge to conservatives but also has kept advocates and other lawmakers guessing about whether he'll ultimately support the bill. "Marco Rubio has been a game changer in my party. He will be there only if the Democrats will embrace a guest worker program and a merit-based immigration system to replace the broken one," Graham said on NBC's "Meet the Press." After consideration by the Judiciary Committee, floor action could start in the Senate in May, Schumer said. Meanwhile two lawmakers involved in writing a bipartisan immigration bill in the House, Reps. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., and Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., sounded optimistic that they, too, would have a deal soon that could be reconciled with the Senate agreement. "I am very, very optimistic that the House of Representatives is going to have a plan that is going to be able to go to a conference with the Senate in which we're going to be able to resolve this," Gutierrez said Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union". ___ Follow Erica Werner on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericawerner

By Mark Felsenthal WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) - South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham on Sunday became the first prominent Republican to publicly praise, however lukewarmly, the budget proposal the White House outlined last week. Graham said that while he believes President Barack Obama's plan is overall bad for the economy, "there are nuggets of his budget that I think are optimistic," and that could set the stage for a broad bargain to put the nation's finances on a stronger footing. He was speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press" program. Graham, a conservative who has deviated from party positions in the past, and has said he would consider raising up to $600 billion in new tax revenue if Democrats accept significant changes to Medicare, the government health program for elderly Americans, and Medicaid, the health safety net for low-income people. The White House on Friday said the president would propose a budget that would offer cuts to so-called entitlement programs such as Social Security, a retirement program, and Medicare in exchange for increased tax revenues and a commitment to spend money on education and infrastructure repair. Obama's proposal, which will formally be made public on Wednesday, is a symbolic document, and both the Senate and House of Representatives have already passed their own budget resolutions. The president's aides have said he hopes to use the offer to appeal to enough middle-of-the-road lawmakers of both parties to pass a broad deal to reduce the budget deficit. Obama also hopes to reverse the deep spending cuts that automatically kicked in March 1 as a result of the failure of the White House and Congress to reach an agreement on replacing them. Graham's reception of the president's budget proposal is warmer than his fellow Republicans and some of the president's own allies have accorded it so far. House Speaker John Boehner said last week the president was ignoring Republicans' staunch opposition to any tax hikes. And independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who votes with the Democrats, said he would oppose any efforts to lower payments to Social Security beneficiaries. In an illustration of the difficulty the president will have retaining support among his fellow party members, a House Democrat said the president's plan risks splintering the party's loyalties. "We need to be solid. We need to indicate to the administration this is a non-starter in the House," Representative Raul Grijalva of New Mexico said on MSNBC. Graham said that the president's offer contained approaches to cutting spending that he supports. One is the proposal to index cost-of-living increases for government program benefits to a less-generous measure of inflation. "The president is showing a little bit of leg here, this is somewhat encouraging," Graham said. "His overall budget's not going to make it, but he has sort of made a step forward in the entitlement-reform process that would allow a guy like me to begin to talk about flattening the tax code and generating more revenue." Obama has invited 12 Republican senators for dinner on the day of the budget release as part of an effort to soften resistance among the opposition political party. "The president's focus, in addition to the regular order process that members of Congress say they want, is to try to find a caucus of common sense, folks who are willing to compromise, that don't think compromise is a dirty word, and try to get something done," White House senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer said on ABC News' "This Week with George Stephanopoulos" program.

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California Gov. Jerry Brown has designs on building some of the most expensive public works projects in the nation and wants to keep the state moving forward in its slow recovery from the recession. Where better to go searching for the money to further those interests than the world's second largest economy and a country that has piles of cash to invest around the globe? The governor of the most populous U.S. state heads to China next week to begin a weeklong trade mission that he hopes will produce investments on both sides of the Pacific. Brown will lead a delegation of business leaders in search of what he calls "plenty of billions." "They've got $400 billion or $500 billion they're going to invest abroad, so California's got to get a piece of that," Brown said in an interview last week ahead of his seven-day trip to China. The governor and business leaders accompanying him are trying to rebuild the state's official relationship with China after the state closed its two trade offices and others around the world a decade ago in a cost-cutting move. California finds itself playing catch-up to other states that have had a vigorous presence in China for years. California, which would be the world's ninth largest economy if it were a separate country, will open a trade office in Shanghai during Brown's visit. The Bay Area Council, a coalition of business interests from the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley, is raising about $1 million a year in private money to operate it. "California shouldn't be the only state in the union not to have a presence with key foreign trading partners like China," said Jim Wunderman, president of the group. The council opened its own office in Shanghai in 2010 to fill the void after the closure of the trade offices. Bruce Pickering, executive director of the Northern California office of the Asia Society, called the 2003 decision "penny wise but pound foolish." "We've basically said, `We're California, show up and stand in line with everybody else,'" Pickering said. "You have to do a little more than just say you're welcoming a business. ... You have to really send a message that you are ready for it." Asia Society, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that promotes collaboration between the U.S. and Asia, reported in 2011 that businesses from China have established operations and created jobs in at least 35 of the 50 U.S. states, including California. Pickering said California is behind other states in recruiting Chinese investment, while states as varied as Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida and Arkansas have had an official presence there. The Republican governors of Iowa, Virginia, Wisconsin and Guam also are visiting China this month and meeting with provincial leaders to discuss trade and the environment. "I would think it would be very difficult to try to attract investment without having someone on the ground there on your behalf," said Joe Holmes, a spokesman for the Arkansas Economic Development Agency. Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe led a mission to China last year, and a number of deals are being discussed as a result, Holmes said. Asia Society reported this year that China's direct foreign investment is poised to skyrocket to between $1 trillion and $2 trillion by 2020. California is ideally situated to capture some of that money if it goes after it: China already is California's third-largest export partner after Mexico and Canada. And Brown already has a relationship with President Xi Jinping. The two met to discuss trade issues last year when the then-vice president visited California. Technology, life sciences, real estate, banking, health care and agriculture are among the industries state business leaders and officials hope to target. The concentration of skilled technical engineers and the clean-energy sector in the Silicon Valley also are a draw for emerging companies, along with Chinese tourism to California. State and local tourism officials are among those joining Brown on the trip, along with winemakers, cheese proprietors and almond growers. In all, about 75 business and policy leaders from a cross-section of California industries are joining the mission, which will include stops in the capital city, Beijing, as well as Shanghai and Guangzhou. Those cities are among the most developed and important in China. Shanghai, a port city, is an important center of industry and finance, while Guangzhou is in the heartland of the Pearl River Delta region, which is home to the myriad processing and assembling factories that have made China the world's factory floor. The nearly $4 billion a year in computer and electronic products California sends to China account for the state's largest export, followed by waste and scrap, non-electrical machinery and transportation equipment. The agriculture products such as strawberries, almonds and lettuce are fifth. According to the governor's office, the vast majority of Chinese exports headed to the United States go through California ports. The trip also signals a pivot for Brown as he seeks to rebuild California's nearly $2 trillion economy after the state's tumultuous ride during the Great Recession. It was the epicenter of the housing crisis and weathered double-digit unemployment for nearly four years. Brown said the state budget has stabilized, in large part because of voter-approved tax increases, and that he is now moving on to broader policy issues. "California is a place where it's a cauldron of creative activity, and I see that China has some of that, maybe a lot of that," Brown said in the interview. "You have always got to find a way to renew things, and that's what I see as my job here." The governor's boldest and most expensive projects are a $68 billion high-speed rail system that is expected to start construction this summer and a $24 billion project to build massive water-delivery tunnels and restore parts of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast. Brown is especially interested in studying China's extensive high-speed rail system and use it as a way to promote his own plan, which has come under intense criticism and has been losing public support as its projected cost has soared. The governor is scheduled to ride part of China's rail system from Beijing to Shanghai, accompanied by the chairman of California's high-speed rail board, Dan Richard. China has the world's longest high-speed rail system, covering 5,800 miles, and has tried to turn it into a showcase. But the system also has faced problems: Part of a line collapsed in central China after heavy rains and a crash in 2011 killed 40 people. The former railway minister, who spearheaded the bullet train's construction, and the ministry's chief engineer, were detained in a corruption investigation. Brown said he likes "the exuberance" with which Chinese officials approached building high-speed rail and would welcome investment in the California system or any other infrastructure projects in the state. Despite the governor's enthusiasm, it's not clear how applicable the Chinese system is to a major infrastructure project in the U.S. The Chinese high-speed rail network benefits from heavy government financing and faces few of the environmental and legal hurdles in California. The land needed to build the Chinese system is often forcibly procured at below market prices. ___ Associated Press writer Charles Hutzler in Beijing contributed to this report.

Leslie Gelb, The Daily BeastThe White House press corps should ask President Obama this question: You've told Iran's leaders that if they come close to marrying a nuclear warhead with a missile that can hit the United States or our allies, they should expect a U.S. military attack on their soil. Specifically, Mr. Obama, you said your policy on Iranian nukes was "prevention," not "containment" or "deterrence." You were not nearly as tough, specific, and threatening to North Korea.

David Rhode, ReutersFor Americans, it was Jon Stewart as national treasure. In a virtuoso performance Monday, the American satirist ridiculed the Egyptian government’s crackdown on Cairo comedian – and Stewart protégé – Bassem Youssef. If you haven’t seen it, you can watch Stewart’s mock conversation with Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi here.“What are you worried about, Mr. President – the power of satire to overthrow the status quo?” Stewart deadpanned. “Just so you know, there’s been a...

John Hinderaker, Power LineIf the reporters who attended the event came away knowing what a magazine is, they are ahead of the game. But Ragsdale's account shows what an uphill battle it is to educate reporters. He is endearingly candid in describing the trepidation with which he approached the firing range:

Adam Gopnik, The New YorkerOne of the oddities of the gun-control debate—apart from ours being the only country that really has one—is that the gun side basically gave up on serious arguments about safety or self-defense or anything else a while ago. The old claims about the million—or was it two million? It kept changing—bad guys stopped by guns each year has faded under the light of scrutiny. Indeed, people who possess guns are almost five times more likely to be shot than those who don’t. (“A gun may falsely empower its possessor to overreact, instigating...

Andrew McCarthy, National ReviewThose clamoring for American intervention in Syria — I should say, even more American intervention in Syria — have a lock on two influential drivers of conservative opinion, Fox News and the Wall Street Journal’s editorial pages. They are also bedfellows on this issue with our Muslim Brotherhood–enthralled president, even if Mr. Obama’s skittishness about going all in has them a bit testy.All of this puts the media wind at their backs. Repeated often enough and reported uncritically enough, the interventionists’ shallow story has...

David Ignatius, Washington PostISTANBUL -- Talking with members of Congress at a gathering here last week was an education in the public's wariness of new foreign entanglements -- especially in Syria. It was a reminder that the post-Iraq era is only beginning, and that it may limit America's ability to exercise power for the next few years.The great advantage (and on occasion, disadvantage) of the House of Representatives is that its members are so close to their constituents. Most of them spend every nearly weekend back home in their districts. So they know what the public is thinking in a personal way...

Good morning and welcome once again to your Sunday morning liveblog, which transforms approximately three hours of political talk-show blather into concentrated form and then there are quickly typed judgments and observations and then everyone goes on about their lives a little less worried or jaded. My name is Jason, and I congratulate everyone who had Louisville and Michigan as their final two picks in their bracket. The fact that I had one of them is in now way indicative of how my bracket fared this year, it was a tragedy wrapped in a disaster by the time the first Saturday night of the tournament had concluded. By the looks of things, today White House senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer will be making the Near Ginsburg around the Sunday shows, probably talking about the new budget from the White House that isn't a new budget at all but everyone is acting as if it contains a bunch of really surprising things instead of something that's been telegraphed for months and months and months. The short version of the story is this: 1. Obama still wants a "Grand Bargain." 2. John Boehner has already said "No" to this offer. 3. It is not clear that Boehner has read it. 4. It doesn't matter. The reason Boehner is saying "No" is because Obama has offered it. 5. There is no budget plan that Boehner will accept. 6. Lots of Democrats don't like Obama's budget plan either. 7. In their case, they've actually read it, and they think it sucks, particularly on Chained CPI. 8. Chained CPI does suck. 9. Why is Social Security part of a "budget" discussion, anyway, you kneebiting idiots? Just raise all the income caps on contributions and get on with your lives. Gah, this doesn't have to be hard. 10. Anyway, anything called a "Grand Bargain" is actually a turd sandwich for the vast majority of Americans, and you should root for it to fail, like I do. 11. You will also be rooting against the dumbest pundits in America, so take pride. 12. Call your Congressman and remind them that if they're trying to be a deficit hawk in a period of less than full employment, then they might as well jump down a well. Anyway, now you don't have to watch these Sunday shows. Go back to brunch and/or bed. If you choose, however, to stick with me through my contractual obligation, remember that you can mix it up in the comments, drop me a line if need be, follow me on Twitter, or catch up on some of the more interesting reads on the internet with my Rebel Mouse page. Okay, getting coffee, and then, let's look at the atrocities my TiVo has recorded today, beginning with... FOX NEWS SUNDAY [More liveblog is on the way. While you are waiting, please enjoy some of the stories I've stacked up on my Rebel Mouse page!]

Saturday thousands marched through Miami's Little Havana neighborhood and Downtown, imploring Congress to pass immigration reform with a real and inclusive path to citizenship for 11 million aspiring Americans. Protesters held signs with "Marco Rubio Say Yes" and "Marco Rubio, Keep Families Together" directed at the Cuban-American Senator whose immigration platform is seen in opposition with the wishes of the Latin base in his hometown of Miami. See photos from the protest below. "There so many people out there who have so many needs and so many challenges,” one marcher told NBC6. “A simple thing like having a driver’s license or having a Social Security number prohibits them from just doing the best they can in this country.” “These residents, if they can get to be permanent residents or citizens, they can take better jobs, they can buy houses, they can contribute more,” Miami Mayor Tomas Regalado said at the rally that ended at Bayfront Park. The march, in which the city's Haitians, Central Americans, Mexicans, Cubans, Asians rallied together, was the biggest pro-immigration reform rally in Miami since a series of rallies and demonstrations in 2006, reports the Miami Herald. Wednesday a much larger immigration reform rally will take place at the capitol to urge lawmakers to address the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S.

Every week we all come across statements that, in seeking to engender confidence, risk stretching the truth too far. It is a hazard that governments, companies and individuals inevitably face when trying to emphasize the positive dimensions of a complicated situation. In seeking to strike a rather delicate balance, the natural inclination often is to err in the direction of being too positive rather than too negative. But once in a while, we come across a vivid an example of how easily this can turn counterproductive, especially if the reassuring statement is meant to play a "catalytic role" -- that is, encourage others to do something they are hesitant to do. A striking example this week comes from the three institutions now charged with the difficult task of rescuing yet another (the fifth) European country. And it is an example that serves as a reminder and warning to others. The "Troika" (which consists of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund) is activated to salvage economies on the brink of bankruptcy. Armed with inevitably imperfect information and incomplete analysis, they race against time to negotiate a "reform program." Their counterparts are shell-shocked country officials (often in denial), as well as reluctant creditors (who are often also angry and uncooperative). Once negotiated, the program has to be sold widely. There is a particular tough part to this unenviable task: Convincing the trio of those directly providing the emergency cash (namely, the political bosses of the Troika), those who carry the brunt of the burden (citizens in the country being rescued), and those whose parallel actions can contribute to making or breaking the program (private investors). It is therefore natural that the announcement of the program is accompanied by a very sophisticated and coordinated PR effort. The primary aim is to try to shape a constructive narrative, particularly by accentuating the positive elements while recognizing (but not amplifying) the challenges. Having worked for 15 years earlier in my career at a multilateral institution involved in country rescues, I know how difficult and time consuming this can be; and I remember the long hours spent with the multiple wordsmiths, including seemingly endless debates as to whether "significant" is better than "substantial" in a particular sentence. Yet I was still struck by what came out of the Troika this week after it finished negotiating the program with the authorities in Cyprus. This is not the first time officials bungle an element of the Cypriot rescue. Only three weeks ago, they agreed on the first iteration of the program that, within just a few hours, attracted so much worldwide criticism that the Troika sought to disown it (having endorsed it earlier). And all were forced red-faced back to the negotiating table. So, consider this summary sentence from a Troika press release a few days ago (and which was picked up by the media and disseminated broadly): "We believe that [the program] provides a durable and fully financed solution to the underlying problems facing Cyprus and provides a sustainable path toward a recovery." Anyone even vaguely familiar with the details of the Cypriot program realizes that the country is a long way away from "a durable and fully financed solution," let alone "a sustainable path toward recovery." Already, key assumptions of the program are outdated if not totally obsolete (including, and particularly regretful given the social costs, a programmed economic contraction limited just to 8% this year). Little is being done to realistically develop new job engines for a country that is suddenly void of any meaningful growth model. Accordingly, the fiscal adjustment being asked from Cyprus will likely prove inconsistent with social and political realities. Especially after the earlier debacle, the Troika could be forgiven in seeking to oversell the Cypriot program. Yet, by going too far, this critically-important group is risking credibility that is key to its success here, as well as in other difficult European rescue cases (and there will be other cases). Few, if any, investors are likely to commit funds to Cyprus when the Troika seems so disconnected from reality. If anything, they could be tempted to use this period of relative and temporary tranquility (if you can even call it that) to pull whatever they have left out of the country. Lacking a credible good outcome down the road, citizens will resist making the sacrifices that are being asked from them, increasing the risk of social unrest. And those who still keep money in local banks will be more inclined to withdraw it, thus deepening a financing hole that is far from covered. These types of Troika statements do not reassure. If anything, they raise doubt about the judgment of officials that are central to a good outcome for Cyprus. Indirectly, they also harm the probability of future European country rescues, and do so at a time when the continent is yet to regain a stable footing. The Troika is not the first to make this mistake. Many companies, governments and individuals have fallen into the same trap. Let us hope that this rather vivid example serves to limit similar mistakes going forward.

WASHINGTON -- A conservative Christian who helped to lead President George W. Bush's faith-based initiative but then criticized the effort has died. David Kuo was 44 when he died Friday in Charlotte, N.C. His wife, Kimberly, tells The Washington Post that he had suffered from brain cancer for the last decade. Kuo had been a policy adviser to Republican Sen. John Ashcroft and a speechwriter for conservative Republicans Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson and for Republican Sen. Bob Dole. He joined the Bush administration in 2001 as deputy of the Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives. Kuo left the White House in 2003. In a book he described the Bush White House as having sought political gain through the manipulation of religious faith and called the initiative a "sad charade."

On Tuesday, President Obama announced a federal effort to map the human brain in unprecedented detail. With any luck, it might help explain the kind of loopy thinking we saw demonstrated at the end of the week. On the one hand, we had the latest jobs report, which showed a country still in crisis, with the addition of only 88,000 new jobs, and the share of the population in the workforce falling to the lowest point in decades. Yet the leaked details of the president's new budget show a focus not on job creation but on cutting the deficit by $1.8 trillion over the next 10 years (in addition to cutting Social Security benefits). So amidst hard evidence of our profound and continuing economic crisis, we get a budget offering a solution to a different (and far less pressing) problem. It's enough to set what Obama called "the three pounds of matter that sits between our ears" spinning.

WASHINGTON — Amid mounting tensions with North Korea, the Pentagon has delayed an intercontinental ballistic missile test that had been planned for next week at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, a senior defense official told The Associated Press on Saturday. The official said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel decided to put off the long-planned Minuteman 3 test until sometime next month because of concerns the launch could be misinterpreted and exacerbate the Korean crisis. Hagel made the decision Friday, the official said. The test was not connected to the ongoing U.S.-South Korean military exercises that have been going on in that region and have stoked North Korean anger and fueled an escalation in threatening actions and rhetoric. North Korea's military warned earlier this week that it was authorized to attack the U.S. using "smaller, lighter and diversified" nuclear weapons. And South Korean officials say North Korea has moved at least one missile with "considerable range" to its east coast – possibly the untested Musudan missile, believed to have a range of 1,800 miles. U.S. officials have said the missile move suggests a North Korean launch could be imminent and thus fuels worries in the region. Pyongyang's moves come on the heels of the North's nuclear test in February, and the launch in December of a long-range North Korean rocket that could potentially hit the continental U.S. Added to that is the uncertainty surrounding the intentions of North Korea's new young leader, Kim Jong Un. Meanwhile, North Korea has been angered by increasing sanctions and ongoing U.S.-South Korean military exercises, which have included a broad show of force ranging from stealthy B-2 bombers and F-22 fighters to a wide array of ballistic missile defense-capable warships. The exercises are scheduled to continue through the end of the month. This past week, the U.S. said two of the Navy's missile-defense ships were moved closer to the Korean peninsula, and a land-based system is being deployed to the Pacific territory of Guam later this month. The Pentagon last month announced longer-term plans to beef up its U.S.-based missile defenses. While Washington is taking the North Korean threats seriously, U.S. leaders continue to say that they have seen no visible signs that the North is preparing for a large-scale attack. The defense official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the Minuteman 3 test delay and requested anonymity, said U.S. policy continues to support the building and testing of its nuclear deterrent capabilities. And the official said the launch was not put off because of any technical problems. The globe-circling intercontinental ballistic missiles make up one of the three legs of America's nuclear arsenal. There are about 450 Minuteman 3 missiles based in underground silos in the north-central U.S. The other two legs of the nuclear arsenal are submarine-launched ballistic missiles and weapons launched from big bombers, such as the B-52 and the stealthy B-2. The traditional rationale for the "nuclear triad" of weaponry is that it is essential to surviving any nuclear exchange.